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People rarely mention the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's famous. That wide that flies to slip, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, bowled him! Final deliveries? I needed to check. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings defeat in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being taken at slip off Harris, Rankin playing in his single Test at the conclusion of a rapid downfall in a comprehensive defeat that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for runs, the sole boundary Australia achieve in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It's the difference between questioning how things will go, and knowing how they do. One certainty is, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, England's trips Down Under have finished in defeat, instead of with them. Andy Flower was removed as coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a pair of XIs out of England players who featured in their final Test match at the conclusion of an tour to Australia during the last quarter-century, and additionally have a few players over to carry the drinks for both teams.

Stokes' squad have not professed to be overly concerned about consequences. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the ODI squad before him, consistently states that regardless of whether a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary is secondary as whether or not it was the correct choice to attempt it in the first place, and while fielding he's quick to praise a pitcher who gives away boundaries so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the key rationale Stokes tried to teach his team to follow this style was so they would be in a more advantageous state to produce the style of play he believes will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been planning extensively, already seems like the result they can't get away from. It is Bazball's make or break moment. And there are an abundance of “I told you so’s” in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do suffer another bad defeat in the next few weeks. Stokes's approach has been founded on challenging skeptics, and the counterpart is it seems that there are many individuals who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Given that, it's a appropriate time to point out that the key issue goes beyond where this all ends up, but regardless of whether we had fun along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been defeated in four consecutive series and were falling behind in the fifth, against India, when it was postponed because of Covid. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost 12 of them by embarrassing margins. An eight-wicket defeat to the Black Caps at the historic venue, 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the London ground, an an innings defeat to the Australians at the MCG, A ten-wicket loss to the Windies in the scenic location.

The team was soundly beaten by West Indies in the island in March 2022 just before Joe Root stepped down as captain.

By the end, after all those stretches of testing and isolation and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of all opponents, they were practically the most dejected and weary Test team England had ever sent out to a sports ground. So much of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved in the following period was in a consequence of all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a period of mental health challenges. It was created to emphasize to all that it was supposed to be entertaining, if it was supposed to be something.

It still is now. Despite when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and even if the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they go about competing. Everyday life has a way of intruding, it can be hard to retain the knowledge we acquire in our toughest times.

This is the England team that secured successive run chases of significant totals in one period against New Zealand; that made a massive 378 to beat the Indian team that same summer; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a stalemate after going two games behind in the the series; that beat India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the subcontinent, and then defeated Pakistan in the city off the back of a further exceptional performance.

Here we have the national side, too, that managed to end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings even though the other team made only 326; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the better Tests ever contested after making a confident decision in the opening session against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against the Aussies; who were thrashed by 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the wrong end of one of the island nation's most notable triumphs. As a unit, they have recorded some of the most improbable victories, experienced some of the poorest performances, scored some of the surprising hundreds, and taken some of the most surprising exceptional bowling spells in the annals of English cricket.

Regardless of how this Ashes series unfolds, they have been, in turn, incredible, preposterous, ridiculous, exasperating, and totally, unrepentantly, unapologetically entertaining.